In general, a refrigerator, which is to store food at a low temperature, keeps food in a freezing chamber and a refrigerating chamber according to the state of food to be stored.
Cold air supplied into the refrigerator may be generated by a heat-exchange of a refrigerant, and continuously supplied into the refrigerator by a repetition of cycle of compression-condensation-expansion-evaporation. The supplied refrigerant is uniformly delivered into the refrigerator by convection current such that food in the refrigerator can be stored at a desired temperature.
As users' life styles are changed and users' demands are increasing, the refrigerator is getting large in size and multi-functional. Also, various shapes of the refrigerator are provided according to the construction of a storage space.
Various foods which should be stored in a freezing chamber or a refrigerating chamber may properly be stored in shelves, drawers, baskets or the like provided in the refrigerator. Such shelf, drawer, basket or the like may partition the storage space of the refrigerator such that various food having different sizes and storage conditions can be stored at a low temperature.
The shelves partitioning the storage space in the refrigerator may be disposed at different positions so as to allow various constructions of the storage space in the refrigerator. Accordingly, a user can adjust the position where a shelf is disposed to store food having various sizes or containers having food therein to construct appropriate spaces.
As a representative disposed structure of the shelf, molded ends are formed at left and right wall surfaces in the refrigerator such that the shelf can be disposed on the molded ends. However, this structure just allows the shelf to be disposed on positions where the molded ends are formed, which may cause limitations on the mounting of the shelf. In addition, forming many molded ends may increase fabrication cost and decrease attraction of the inner space of the refrigerator.
In the meantime, another structure of the shelf mounted is that a guide having a plurality of holes is installed on a rear wall surface in the refrigerator, such that a shelf having an annular coupling portions is coupled into the holes of the guide, thereby mounting the shelf in a shape like a cantilever.
However, in this structure, the shelf should be completely detached from the guide to be re-attached in order to change the disposed position of the shelf. To this end, articles on the shelf should be taken out of the shelf, and then the shelf should be attached onto a new position to thereafter put the articles removed on the shelf again. Furthermore, whenever the shelf is attached, the shelf should be leveled to be appropriately disposed, which results in user's inconvenience in attaching the shelf.
In order to solve those problems, a shelf structure is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,065,821 in which a handle or lever mounted at a shelf turns to adjust a longitudinal height of the shelf engaged with the handle or lever by gears.
However, in the related art, the handle or lever should continuously turn to adjust the height of the shelf. Accordingly, if the shelf should be long moved, the handle should also turn for a long time, resulting in user's inconvenience.
In addition, if articles such as food are stored on the shelf, much time and force are required to turn the handle or lever to move the shelf up and down due to the weights of the articles.
Also, gears or sprocket-shaped components perform a relative motion to occur considerable noise. When articles are stored on the shelf, noise becomes worse, which may make the user uncomfortable.
Furthermore, a complicated structure causes difficulty to attach or detach the shelf.